How long should I keep all club records, tax returns, etc,
after a club has been dissolved.
Thanks, jane

> How long should I keep all club records, tax returns, etc,
> after a club has been dissolved.

Hi Jane,

Good question. In a nutshell, the answer is 3 to 6 years.

For more details, here is a nice write up from the IRS that covers everything. It
has information that applies to individual financial records as well.

 http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98513,00.html

Another thing to think about these days is the storage of your
monthly statements. Many financial institutions no longer provide
paper statements. My club is in the process of switching brokers and
I realized that I was going to need to download all of our statements so
that we'd have them where they were accessible. I'm going to
plan to start storing statements in my club's files area in bivio. It's a
central place and that way anyone in the club who needs them can get to them.

    Laurie Frederiksen

  

John Rice wrote:
> Laurie, just a word of caution.  I am the treasurer of an online club which uses emails to vote, discuss and to document everything that we do.  I keep everything on Bivio so that all members can see whatever they want anytime they want.  I do print up copies of statements and other important stuff as well.  Two months ago one of our partners deleted all of our emails on Bivio because she didn't want them.  She thought that it was her personal "inbox".  So make sure that all of your members know not to delete anything. 
>  
> John Rice
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Laurie Frederiksen <laurie@bivio.biz>
> To: The Club Cafe <club_cafe@bivio.com>
> Sent: Sat, March 20, 2010 2:49:40 PM
> Subject: RE: club_cafe: How long to keep club records
>
> > How long should I keep all club records, tax returns, etc,
> > after a club has been dissolved.
>
> Hi Jane,
>
> Good question. In a nutshell, the answer is 3 to 6 years.
>
> For more details, here is a nice write up from the IRS that covers everything.  It
> has information that applies to individual financial records as well.
>
> http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98513,00.html
>
> Another thing to think about these days is the storage of your
> monthly statements.  Many financial institutions no longer
> provide
> paper statements.  My club is in the process of switching brokers and
> I realized that I was going to need to download all of our statements so
> that we'd have them where they were accessible.  I'm going to
> plan to start storing statements in my club's files area in bivio.  It's a
> central place and that way anyone in the club who needs them can get to them.
>
>     Laurie Frederiksen
>
>  
John-I'm a little confused--did your deleting member delete
only personal e-mails or did her action affect the club
records?

Laurie Frederiksen wrote:
> Dear John,
>
>  
>
> Your point is well taken.
>
>  
>
> >Two months ago one of our partners deleted all of
> our emails on Bivio because she didn't want them.  She thought that
> it was her personal "inbox".  So make sure that all of your
> members >know not to delete anything
>
>  
>
> It’s always good to remind ourselves that just because
> something is obvious to us doesn’t mean it looks the same to everyone
> else.
>
>  
>
> This brings to my mind two  things that come up in support
> every now and then that may not apply to your situation but I will mention in
> case other people are interested.
>
>  
>
> First,  a member with regular “Member”
> privileges,  does not have the ability to delete emails.  Unless
> someone needs to do something other than view club information, you might want
> to
>
> keep their privileges set to Member.   A “Member”
> can add and delete files in the files area but that is probably more obviously
> something that belongs to the entire club.
>
>  
>
> Second,  you can send emails to your club address from any
> email program.  You do not have to send them from within bivio.  You
> can send them directly from Outlook or gmail or AOL or whatever you usually use
> to compose emails.   You just need to send them from the address that
> you have registered with bivio.  If you address them to yourclubID@bivio.com they will go to all
> the members of your club who have online access.    If you send
> your emails this way,  you will all have copies within your personal email
> programs as well as on bivio in case anything gets inadvertently deleted in the
> future.
>
>  
>
> I hope this wasn’t too traumatic of a learning experience
> for your club.  Thank you for mentioning it.  I’m sure some of
> us will now make a point of discussing the topic with our own clubs.
>
>  
>
>  Laurie Frederiksen
Laurie--my response to John "did the deleter's action affect
only her files or the entire club?" was to bring up the
subject of "privileges" as you did. If it affected the
entire club, then the person should be listed as a "member
Only the "administrator" should have the ability to
edit/modify club records. This raises another question
based on your comment that a "member" can add or delete
files. Does this comment apply only to the "members" files?

The member who erased all of our emails is our secretary.
She is listed on Bivio as an administrator. She erased all
of our discussions, memos and votes. Fortunately, the club
is only 2 years old so it is not decades of stuff. I am now
having to kill more trees by printing up key emails. Is it
possible to insert into the program a "Pop Up" when
something is selected to be deleted in the communications
tab that says "***CAREFUL*** This item will be deleted from
the club's site, NOT FROM YOUR OWN PERSONAL SCREEN" or
something similar. Feel free to reword it.

John Rice
ABODI Investment Club

John's suggestion sounds prudent to this Administrator!

Best Regards,

Leo

-----Original Message-----
From: club_cafe@bivio.com [mailto:club_cafe@bivio.com] On Behalf Of John
Rice
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 1:01 AM
To: club_cafe@bivio.com
Subject: club_cafe: RE: How long to keep club records

The member who erased all of our emails is our secretary.
She is listed on Bivio as an administrator. She erased all of our
discussions, memos and votes. Fortunately, the club is only 2 years old so
it is not decades of stuff. I am now having to kill more trees by printing
up key emails. Is it possible to insert into the program a "Pop Up" when
something is selected to be deleted in the communications tab that says
"***CAREFUL*** This item will be deleted from the club's site, NOT FROM YOUR
OWN PERSONAL SCREEN" or something similar. Feel free to reword it.

John Rice
ABODI Investment Club

Hi John,

I will pass this suggestion on to our developers. I
think it is a good thing for us to think about the fact that
not everyone is comfortable with the technology.

We have found though that there is no warning message that
deters all possible errors. From my
experience, there is nothing of importance that you have on a computer
that shouldn't be stored in a backup form somewhere.
That is why I had suggested using your regular email
program to send club emails. That way, you can easily
save a copy of important emails within your email program
as well as on bivio. I think the chances you would have a
problem arise with both of those at the same time are
pretty slim.

 Laurie Frederiksen

Colin K. Wilson wrote:
> This raises another question
> based on your comment that a "member" can add or delete
> files. Does this comment apply only to the "members" files?

Any of the members can delete any of the files. There's no
special treatment for files uploaded by club officers.

Eric Dobbs
bivio Inc.

Cherilyn J. Peay wrote:
> When I export (as in backup) is that only the numerical data and
> transactions?

Yes. The accounting data and the member contact info are
included in the export. Mail archives and club files are
not included in the export.

> How do I back up the entire site? Is it necessary to download each file
> individually?

We don't have any tools for backing up the mail archives and
club files in bulk. So if you don't already have a copy of
the files elsewhere, you'll have to back them up
individually.

> What type of backup system does
> Bivio use? Are servers mirrored  and is there off site backup?

We've got excellent backup procedures including off-site
backups that are even in different cities. However, as I
mentioned above, our backups do not include the mail and
files.

Eric Dobbs
bivio Inc.

Eric Dobbs wrote:
> Colin K. Wilson wrote:
> > This raises another question
> > based on your comment that a "member" can add or delete
> > files. Does this comment apply only to the "members" files?
>
> Any of the members can delete any of the files. There's no
> special treatment for files uploaded by club officers.
>
> Eric Dobbs
> bivio Inc.
Eric--as I understand the procedures, only the
Administrator, which I am, can EDIT club records. However,
with reference to the above comments, am I to understand a
member may access a record of 15 year payments by another
member and delete it? Or, I repeat the question, will the
deletion only affect the deleter's records or will it affect
the club recordsZ

Eric Dobbs wrote:
> Any of the members can delete any of the files. There's no
> special treatment for files uploaded by club officers.

Colin K. Wilson wrote:
> am I to understand a
> member may access a record of 15 year payments by another
> member and delete it?

Let me clarify. My comments above about what members are
able to delete is confined to the Communications section of
the club site: only the mail and files can be deleted by
members. So when I say "files" I mean very specifically the
stuff in here:

http://www.bivio.com/my-club-site/files

And when I say "mail" I mean very specifically the stuff in
here:

http://www.bivio.com/my-club-site/mail

(At the risk of confusing matters, I'll add that club_cafe
and similar email lists get special treatment where members
cannot delete the messages.)

With regard to the accounting records, only club officers
can add, edit, or delete anything. Members are only able to
view the accounting records -- they cannot make any changes
of any kind even to their own payments.

Members are able to update their contact information in the
Roster.

Eric Dobbs
bivio Inc.